What if your workplace supported you during menopause?
Because caring for this part of the workforce just makes sense.
When she was 42, LaTisha noticed that her periods had changed. A lot.
Seemingly overnight, they became abnormally heavy — she was wearing a level five pad and a super plus tampon and still had to change both on the hour. Her three-day, symptomless cycles were gone, replaced by an unpredictable schedule.
While navigating all of this, LaTisha got a major promotion at work — one she had worked hard for, knew she deserved, and was thrilled to take on.
Then the rage started.
LaTisha, a single mom and director of business and finance in Texas who asked to use only her first name because of the personal nature of her story, would wake up in the morning consumed by an unfamiliar sense of anger that would last for hours.
“It would take me until mid-morning to just emotionally calm down,” she recalled. “Mind you, this is all internal because I cannot present that way at work. And I’m still going to work every day, doing all the things.”
Her doctor didn’t even mention the word “perimenopause.” But after she gained 20 pounds in six weeks, a search for answers led her to a new telehealth provider who used the word and helped her find supplements that would ease her symptoms.
Within a month and a half she had lost 15 pounds and her moods evened out.
And she’s been promoted two more times in the three years since beginning to receive perimenopause care.
Let’s talk about menopause at work
Stories like LaTisha’s are exactly why we hosted a conversation in Austin last week about menopause and the workplace.
I spoke with Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, and Megan R. Holmes, co-director of the Center on Trauma and Adversity at Case Western Reserve University, about how we can think more holistically about workplace culture, public policy and economic advancement for women in midlife and beyond.
“We’re caring for others. We’re often not caring for ourselves,” Holmes said. “We’re in the sandwich generation. … If you’re having to make a choice between caring for your kids, caring for your parents, making sure that you sustain at your job — you’re likely not going to choose yourself, which is detrimental because we have to be investing in ourselves.”
Holmes also pointed out that keeping this demographic in the workforce is good business sense. Companies should avoid losing institutional knowledge or mentors for younger women.
Goss Graves also asked that we contextualize this moment and what it means for women in midlife in the context of the larger cultural pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion. The unemployment rate for Black women, for example, is just over 7 percent: Layering on the stresses of midlife can compound the pressures pushing them out of the workforce.
“A lot of women around the country right now are feeling very, really very vulnerable in terms of their attachment to work, full stop. And when that happens, that’s not just about them: it’s about their entire families. It’s about communities,” Goss Graves said.
Because caring for this part of the workforce just makes sense, Goss Graves and Holmes said.
What could help? Employers could be more flexible with time off or breaks during the workday; they could be required to provide accommodations like a chair or a fan for those who need it. And more public conversation helps boosts awareness and makes these things more possible.
Goss Graves also pointed to protections against age and gender discrimination that already exist — and to laws being passed in places like Rhode Island that expand these by explicitly enabling workplace protections for those in menopause. Now’s a great time, she said, for other states to start drafting and passing their own equivalent bills.
(And to the person at our event last week who shouted out, “Make every room 62 degrees!” when I asked our panel what employers could do tomorrow to start enacting meaningful change? I salute you.)
Cue the expert
Lauren Smith Brody is the CEO of The Fifth Trimester, a workforce strategy firm, and the co-founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Chamber of Mothers. The Fifth Trimester partnered with Midi Health, a telehealth menopause care company, to research the impact of menopause support on women’s work performance. (Midi has been a sponsor of this newsletter.) And what Brody found is that, first of all, women in perimenopause and menopause are “doing their whole jobs and doing them well.”
But when they do struggle, the real cost ends up being not to their employer but to their own well-being. And this in turn impacts their career longevity and own sense of ambition as they push through while feeling unwell and unsupported.
“They risked burnout. And they risked quitting. And since many of their symptoms — 93 percent had disrupted sleep, 92 percent had brain fog, 79 percent had anxiety or depression, all from hormone changes — were invisible to their colleagues, no one would even know until it was too late.”
As a result, many of these women ultimately drop out of the workforce to conserve their energy so they can direct it toward caregiving responsibilities they are also shouldering.
But what Brody found is that the right care really helps propel women at make-or-break moments in their careers: The survey indicated that people experiencing symptoms of perimenopause and menopause are four times more likely to report exceeding requirements at work after they begin treating their symptoms.
“To be clear, I’m not suggesting that everyone girl boss their way through menopause and try harder than they want to,” Brody said. But, it was notable that after getting care, people “had capacity to decide where to put their energy rather than burning it all up to work just trying to stay afloat.”
It’s why Brody sees a tremendous opportunity for employers to start thinking about menopause support as part of not only their benefits packages, but also holistic frameworks for making sure employees have the support they need to stay in the workforce and continue growing in their careers.
“Businesses have made real strides in taking care of new moms in recent years, but with menopause care they could provide a continuum of support that carries women through all stages of their careers.”
What could be
The past few years have really made LaTisha think about what it would mean to have a culture that understood the impact perimenopause can have on work.
She doesn’t blame her employer for a lack of support — she never even disclosed what she was going through.
But she wonders what it would look like if there were active outreach about mental health benefits, or even literature available through HR about perimenopause, when it can begin and what symptoms can entail.
“I’m an African-American woman and I think culturally, we don’t do the best job all the time of seeking help. We like to tough it out. So with that, I think that it’s a serious enough situation where if you don’t seek proper support, then it could ruin you,” she said.
LaTisha, now 46, keeps a mini fridge stocked with cold bottles of water in her office and has a fan in there as well. Both help with the hot flashes she’s started experiencing. Her office has become a place where other women come to cool off — literally and emotionally — while dealing with their own perimenopause symptoms, and she’s happy to provide a safe space for them. After all, she knows firsthand it’s what they deserve at this point in their lives.
“I would want every woman in the world to know that you can still have all the things that your heart desires.”